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MEMOIR 



OF 



WILLIAM CROWNINSHIELD ENDICOTT 

BY 

JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE 





^mfta-tr^l J^y, ^A^ 



MEMOIR 



OF 



WILLIAM CROWNINSHIELD ENDICOTT 



BY 

JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE 



REPRINTED FROM 

THE PUBLICATIONS 

OF 

€J)e Colonial <^ociec^ of iSt^a^gaclju^ettsi 

Vol. Vin. 



CAMBRIDGE 

JOHN WILSON AND SON 

gHntbErsttg ^rcgs 

1904 



e: 



64- 







In Bsedttfi^ 
Am jr. Ant. Soo* 

26 Jl 1907 



MEMOIR 

OF 

WILLIAM CROWNINSHIELD EKDICOTT, LL.D. 



BY 

JOSEPH HODGES CHOATE. 



Massachusetts cherishes with just pride the character and 
career of William Crowninshield Endicott, and The Colonial 
Society, of which he was an active member, is especially interested 
in honoring and perpetuating his memory. Born in 1826, when 
John Quincy Adams was President, and dying in 1900, in the 
fourth year of William McKinley's ofi&cial term, he lived in the 
administrations of nineteen Presidents of the United States. His 
seventy-three years covered the most eventful and critical period of 
the country's history, and during a considerable portion of his life 
he was engaged in the public service of the State and the Nation, 
in conspicuous positions, which he filled with great credit to liim- 
self and advantage to the community, and always with conscien- 
tious fidelity. In all the relations of life he commanded universal 
confidence by the absolute purity and dignity of his personal 
character. 

A glance at the scenes and the circumstances of his boyhood 
will shed some light upon the happy development of the man. He 
inherited a proud name, and with it a just pride of ancestry, which 
he cherished through life without affectation and without suffering 
it in the least to impair his democratic sympathies. It was a great 
distinction to be the descendant and bear the name of the first 
Governor of Massachusetts, who was sixteen times elected to that 
most important office, and who stands as a great historical figure, 



first in time among the founders of a noble State. His sturdy and 
rugged reputation, by no means fading in the lapse of time, has 
dominated Salem and the County of Essex down to our own day, 
and constitutes one of the local treasures. If the portraits of the 
Governor which have come down to us are to be relied upon, Mr. 
Endicott in the eighth generation bore a marked resemblance in 
feature and bearing to this distinguished ancestor. It would have 
been an excellent thing both for Mr. Endicott and for the State, if 
he too in liis day and generation could have been elected Governor 
of Massachusetts ; and I cannot help thinking that the example 
and career of the early Governor, of which he must always have 
borne some impression, was an element in the moulding and devel- 
opment of those qualities which enabled him in after life to fill 
high office with success. 

The first Colonial Governor was not the only ancestor of whom 
he was justly proud. His lineage in all its strands can be traced 
back to all that was best in the early history of the Colony. The 
Crowninshields, the Derbys, the Gardners, the Williamses, the 
Putnams, and the Mannings, who had been among its prominent 
families from the seventeenth century, were of his line, and they 
had had much to do with the making of Salem and of the State. 
The Crowninshields and the Derbys in particular had a great part 
in the development of our early American commerce, when Salem 
ships, owned and navigated by them, penetrated to the remotest 
quarters of the globe, and made the little town a great commercial 
port and her name known the world over. They were pioneers of 
trade and commerce in the Far East, where they carried in honor, 
upon ships of their own building, the flag which has now, for a 
time only let us hope, practically disappeared from the ocean, and 
they brought home great cargoes which enriched themselves and 
the place of their residence. Mr. Endicott's maternal grandfather, 
Jacob Crowninshield, was a very conspicuous man, a prominent 
member of Congress, and was appointed Secretary of the Navy by 
President Jefferson, who was a close personal friend, — an honor 
which he declined for what seems now, in these days of steam and 
electricity, the very singular reason " that he could not be absent 
all the year from his business and family." He was a great naviga- 
tor and merchant and was fully equipped on all questions which 
would have come before him as Secretary of the Navy, an office to 



which his brother Benjamin W. Crowninshield, a man of the same 
quality, was ten years afterwards appointed by President Madison. 
It was in sympathy witli this sea-faring and ship-owning branch of 
his family that Mr. Endicott in after years was such a fu-m advo- 
cate of the doctrine that the restoration of its once powerful 
mercantile marine was essential to the true greatness of the United 
States, and ought to be accomplished at whatever cost. Thus the 
subject of this memoir came, through many generations, of the 
best stock and breeding of Massachusetts. As might have been 
expected, the quality and the fibre of his natural character were 
worthy of the best nurture and education which his time afforded, 
and these produced the high-toned and cultivated gentleman, the 
public-spirited citizen, the wise judge, and the pure and safe 
statesman whom the world knew. 

Salem was a unique and interesting community in those days. 
She had lost or was fast losing her commercial supremacy, but the 
descendants of her ambitious navigators and successful merchants 
were enjoying in the second and third generations the fruits, and 
the best fruits, of their success. A highly intelligent and culti- 
vated society had grown up there, with an aristocratic leadership 
into which the Endicotts naturally came. Wealth, travel, and 
education had contributed to its culture and progress. There was 
probably more wealth and there certainly were more college gradu- 
ates, in proportion to the population, than in any other town of 
New England. It was a conspicuously intellectual community. 
A few of the great merchants still lingered among us in advanced 
years, and the sons and daughters of many who had passed away 
occupied their places and enjoyed the good results of their for- 
tunes. The professional men, who abounded in numbers and 
character, had great weight and gave the tone to the civic commu- 
nity. The Essex Bar was still a powerful fraternitj^ and its most 
distinguished members resided in Salem. Her physicians and 
clergymen and men of science and learning occupied worthy and 
influential positions. Horace Mann was arousing enthusiasm for 
popular education. The atmosphere of the place was decidedly 
liberal. Harvard College and the Unitarian movement had broken 
the back of that hateful, dogmatic theology which, in the days of 
Salem Witchcraft and its high priest Cotton Mather, had disgraced 
the place and given it an unwholesome reputation. At the same 



time, there was a distinct individuality about the town. It was 
shut in and quite apart from other towns and cities, and the life 
of the place was all contained within itself, so that whatever hap- 
pened in Salem or ever had happened in Salem was of supreme 
importance to its citizens. Communication with the outer world 
was extremely limited. Endicott was eleven years old when the 
railroad iirst reached Salem from Boston. The semi-weekly press 
supplied the local news of the day, but brought very tardy intelli- 
gence as to events beyond the limits of Essex County ; and so the 
people of Salem had to be, and were, sufficient unto themselves. 
The habits of the place were extremely simple. Until the murder 
of Captain Joseph White, in 1830, it was not uncommon to 
leave the house door unlocked and unbarred. The police force 
of the town consisted of two maimed veterans, and there was 
still a great deference among the people towards the leading 
citizens. 

Fortunate was the boy whose lot was cast in Salem in those days. 
All his surroundings tended to keep him in the right path, and the 
facilities for a liberal training were of the best. I remember Endi- 
cott, a bright, handsome, and extremely courteous and agreeable 
boy, in 1840 or thereabouts, when he began to prepare for Harvard 
at the Latin School, a public school strictly devoted to preparing 
boys for college, where nothing but Latin, Greek, and Mathematics 
was taught. This school has come down from the very earliest 
days of the Colony. It was founded in 1637 and furnished to the 
first class that graduated from Harvard, in 1642, at least one man 
who afterwards became distinguished on both sides of the Atlantic. 
The disciphne was severe and absolutely equal. It was a strictly 
democratic community, and it is certain that every boy found there 
his level and learned to realize that all are made of one flesh and 
one blood. Every year the school sent to Harvard a group of boys 
well prepared and proud of their nativity, who in numbers and 
standing held no mean place in the small classes of those days. 

Harvard College, when Endicott entered it in 1843, was hardly 
more than the germ of the great and powerful University which 
now exists at Cambridge. The whole number of students, less 
than three hundred, did not equal the number of teachers now 
employed. There was a mere handful of professors and tutors. 
The curriculum in the first quarter of the century had not changed 



much since the days of our fathers. The four old dormitories, 
Massachusetts, Hollis, Stoughton, and Holworthy, Harvard, Uni- 
versity and Gore Halls, and Holden Chapel constituted the entire 
plant. The method of tuition varied little from that pursued in 
the preparatory schools, consisting chiefly of learning by rote and 
reciting lessons, with a very few lectures. Examinations were little 
more than nominal and were oral; the modern system of cram- 
ming, unloading and forgetting, had not come in ; the elective 
system had not begun ; the stimulating influences and remarkable 
facilities now enjoyed were unknown. For all this, it is hardly yet 
possible to say that the new methods are producing a set of men 
sounder and abler and more efficient for the service of the com- 
munity than the old. Comparing the graduates from 1820 to 
1850 with those from 1850 to 1880, — while the latter group far 
excels the former in numbers, it can hardly be said to have pro- 
duced men superior in quality or in distinction. The social advan- 
tages of those days were great, an admirable class feeling prevailed, 
there was very close friction man with man, and each one found 
his place. At any rate, Harvard then furnished the best that 
America afforded, and Endicott got the full benefit of it. He 
appears not to have been a very hard student, but improved his 
time in acquiring a knowledge of books and of general literature, 
which stood him well in hand as a great reader in his subsequent 
laborious life. Among the meritorious students of the Class, he 
stood in the third grade and at Commencement he delivered a 
disquisition on Public Honors in Different Ages. Although he 
was not a member of the Phi Beta Kappa at graduation, he was, 
in 1858, elected into that society of scholars. In the four years 
of his residence at Cambridge, he acquired an ardent love of the 
College as a centre of learning and culture, in which his own in- 
tellectual life had been nourished, and a high appreciation of its 
value as one of the chief factors in the promotion of American 
civilization. This made him through life the devoted servant of 
his Alma Mater, and the important part which he took in the care 
of her interests and the development of her usefulness, resources, 
and influence, entitles him to the grateful recognition of his coun- 
trymen, quite as much as the more public service which he rendered 
in conspicuous official stations. 

The actual and rapid development of the ancient College into 



8 

the great University, which now leads the educational forces of the 
United States, began in 1869 with the election of President Eliot, 
who with a courage, wisdom, concentration of purpose and fertility 
of resource entirely unsurpassed, has conducted its affairs and 
brought it, by the devotion of a long life to its service, to its 
present commanding position. During a large part of this long 
period, Mr. Endicott was honorably connected with the government 
of Harvard, and by careful and skilful attention to its welfare up- 
held the arms of the President, and had a full share in the great 
work of progress which Mr. Eliot designed and accomplished. In 
1875 he was elected a member of the Board of Overseers for two 
years, and again in 1876 for six years more, and a third time in 
1883 for a further term of six years. On Commencement Day, 
1882, the Degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him " in 
glad recognition of his attainments, station, and influence," — an 
honor which I am sure he enjoyed as much as any distinction 
which ever came to him. In 1884 he was elected a Fellow of the 
Corporation, and, withdrawing from the Board of Overseers, as the 
positions were incompatible, he continued for eleven years, until 
September, 1895, to discharge the important and responsible duties 
of a member of the Corporation which really controls the destinies 
of the University. In recognition of his loyalty he was elected 
President of the Alumni. Thus for twenty years he served the 
University with unfailing devotion. The value of his long and 
close attention to its interests could not be better expressed than 
by the Resolution passed by his associates on the occasion of his 
resignation, because of failing health, in 1895, — a resolution which 
certainly received the cordial approval of all the Alumni. 

The Board desire to record their sense of the high value of Judge 
Eudicott's service to the University, and their regret at losing his sup- 
port in the discharge of their trust. He brought to the service of the 
University an honored name, professional distinction, and a high repu- 
tation in the community for impartiality, dignity, and firmness. 

The members of the Board will greatly miss at their meetings not 
only these rare personal possessions, but also his sincere friendliness 
and the charm of his courteous, cordial manners. 

I have thus surveyed by itself the history of his relations with 
Harvard from the date of his entry in 1843 until his withdrawal 



from the Corporation in 1895, a period of more than half a cen- 
tury ; and this I have done quite in advance of any reference to 
his professional and political services, because to my mind it is 
fully as important as the rest, and because it shows in a clear light 
what manner of man he was, — a typical Harvard man of the 
highest grade, who received and enjoyed all the benefits and honors 
which the College had to bestow, and who, in glad and grateful 
recognition of the nurture he had received within her walls, 
revelled in her success and through a long life did all he could 
to promote it. Whoever knows Massachusetts well, knows that 
such a man must have been of her very best. 

When Mr. Endicott was approaching the end of his college 
course, the choice of a profession naturally presented itself and 
the charms of a commercial career were pressed upon him. Great 
opportunities in Eastern commerce, in which Salem and his friends 
had still a strong interest, were held out to him, but his tastes lay 
in the direction of law and literature and the possibilities of politi- 
cal life which the profession of the law might open to him, as it 
has always been the chief avenue to public life in America. The 
thirst for wealth which has become such an absorbing and voracious 
appetite in these last days had never fastened upon him, and he 
wisely chose the professional career in which he could by no pos- 
sibility hope to become rich, but for which his natural faculties and 
inclinations so admirably suited him. Having completed his legal 
studies with Nathaniel J. Lord, a noted and very accomplished advo- 
cate of that day, and at the Harvard Law School, he was admit;ted 
to the Bar in Salem in 1850, and immediately began the practice of 
the profession which requires of those who would win its highest 
prizes more patience, industry, and self-denial than any other call- 
ing; but he had good health, a reasonable ambition, strength of 
will, and great tenacity of purpose, and soon won his way to a suc- 
cessful practice. There were still giants at the Essex Bar in those 
days, and some of those great advocates who had won their first 
fame there and afterwards moved to wider spheres of activity, 
occasionally returned to share in its conflicts. The local contes- 
tants had among them many very powerful men, with whom Mr. 
Endicott was soon called to contend, and in a long career of more 
than twenty years he not only held his own, but gradually and 
steadily came to the front, so that at the time he was called to 



10 

the Bench he was without a superior at the Bar of Essex, which 
he had so long adorned. 

During the early years of his practice it was occasionally my 
privilege to hear him try and argue cases, especially before juries 
in the Salem Court House. He had not yet come to the full matu- 
rity of his professional strength, and was not engaged in the larger 
cases of which he afterwards commanded a full share, but he pos- 
sessed and exhibited the prime qualities of successful advocacy. 
Thorough preparation, unvarpng coolness, and great readiness 
were of course his, but what always seemed to me to be his dis- 
tinguishing characteristics, were his transparent honesty and fair- 
ness and his extreme and uniform courtesy. The tricks of the 
trade had no charms for him. Both Judges and Juries believed 
what he said. They knew they could trust him, and so they put 
their confidence in him. Where he ought to win he won, and I do 
not believe that he ever regretted losing a case that he ought to 
have lost. At the same time the charm of his manner, his winning 
presence, his clear and agreeable voice, and his unruffled calmness 
conciliated the good-will of all, and made it difficult for more bois- 
terous or less scrupulous advocates to get the better of him ; and 
all the while he was qualifying himself without knowing it for the 
eminent place to which he was at last unexpectedly called, and 
became a thorough master of the law. There was no luck in his 
success at the Bar ; there seldom is. Patronage did not help him ; 
there was no patronage. Clients wanted always the man who 
coujd best take care of their interests, and gradually they more 
and more resorted to him. His character told strongly in his favor 
in the race for success, and his naturally good and sound judg- 
ment and common sense, strengthened by study and legal training, 
made him a favorite professional adviser. 

These were twenty-three years of stern and strenuous toil and 
rigid self-denial, of which the advocate's life is always full, leaving 
him but little time to indulge in literature which he loved. Rea£l- 
ing was his pastime and recreation. There was very little oppor- 
tunity for sport in those days in Essex County, — sport which 
does so much in England for the professional man, and is now 
beginning to do something for all sedentary men in America. 
The gospel of hard work was still the universal creed in New 
England. While he was pursuing his law study and in the very 



11 

earliest years of his professional life, he held a commission from 
the Governor in the militia of the Commonwealth, as First Lieu- 
tenant and afterwards as Captain of the Salem Light Infantry, the 
crack corps of its day; and many a time, with admiring eyes, I 
have seen him, looking every inch a soldier, proudly marching at 
the head of liis little company, which in those days enjoyed great 
local fame. Incidentally, as time went on, politics appear to have 
given him some diversion, and no doubt had his professional labor 
been less engrossing, might have engaged his serious attention. 
He served several years in the Common Council of Salem and 
was one year its President. For many years he was elected or 
appointed City Solicitor, and four times he was the unsuccessful 
Democratic candidate for Attorney-General of Massachusetts, and 
once for Congress in the Essex District. I attach, and I think he 
attached, but little importance to these political diversions, except 
as they manifested his public spirit and willingness to serve the 
State or City when duty called, and the growing and general esti- 
mation in which he was held by his feUow-citizens. It was upon 
his equipment and reputation as a lawyer of the first rank, however, 
that his subsequent public service rested. 

Mr. Endicott's preparation for judicial life, unconscious though 
it was, and without a thought on his part of ever being called to 
serve the community in that position, was constant and uninter- 
rupted through the whole twenty-three years of his career at 
the Bar. The experience of the English Courts, where for cen- 
turies it has been the recognized rule to fill vacancies on the Bench 
by the appointment of the leaders of the Bar, has proved the wis- 
dom of the rule and the success of the system. However improb- 
able it might seem, a priori, that the advocate's contentious habit 
of mind, persistently and strenuously exercised for half a lifetime, 
could easily be laid aside and exchanged for the judicial habit and 
temper, long experience has demonstrated that leading and thor- 
oughly trained advocates have generally become sound and impar- 
tial judges. Their previous mental labors have not only made 
them thorough masters of the law, but have also given them an 
extensive and far-reaching insight into human affairs in all their 
variety and complexity. An advocate of Mr. Endicott's keen in- 
telligence and vigor of mind could not possibly spend a long 
series of years in the conduct of litigation in a homogeneous 



12 

community like Massachusetts without becoming perfectly familiar 
with every sort of legal question that could arise among the 
people, and with the entire range of subjects and facts which the 
solution of those questions involved. In such a practice as his, too, 
there was a department of work, which is in its nature judicial, — 
the giving of professional opinions on every kind of question that 
could arise in a county of widely diversified business and interests, 
and here Mr. Endicott excelled. The same self-reliance and inde- 
pendence of judgment, which, added to his innate spirit of justice, 
went so far to explain his success at the Bar, made his professional 
opinions worth having and acting upon. His mind was proof 
against the insidious temptation which sometimes induces the 
lawyer to lean towards the opinion that is needed or desired by 
the party who consults him, and to convince himself unconsciously 
on the side of his retainer. It was not in his nature and character 
to yield to such a temptation. His written opinions while he was 
at the Bar were really judicial, and we are not surprised to learn 
from the highest authority ^ that " some of [them] upon difficult 
questions . . . had a weight scarcely less than that accorded to the 
decisions of [the Supreme Judicial Court.] " 

Thus we find Mr. Endicott at the age of forty-six in the very 
prime of life, full of health and vigor of body and mind, foremost 
in the forensic arena of his neighborhood, and admirably qualified 
in mind, character, manners, temper, and experience to be a good 
and useful Judge. Had he lived in a jurisdiction where the Judi- 
ciary is elective by the popular vote, the chances would have been 
ten to one at least against his ever being made a Judge. He had 
never curried popular favor or coveted applause, he had been 
diligent in his business to a degree that made it impossible to keep 
himself in evidence before the people, even had he desired it ; he 
scorned all the arts of the demagogue, and had never sought or 
thought of the position. The party to which he had belonged 
nearly all his life, and to which he conscientiously adhered at great 
personal sacrifice, was and had long been in a hopeless minority in 
the Commonwealth whose chief magistrate had the power of ap- 
pointment ; but fortunately for the administration of justice with- 
in her limits, Massachusetts has faithfully adhered to that ancient 

^ Attorney-General Knowlton. 



13 

and conservative system, of the appointment of Judges by the head 
of the State to hold ofSce during good behavior, which for more 
than two centuries has worked well in England and for more than 
one has made our Federal Judiciary the stronghold of Justice and 
kept the judicial name above suspicion and reproach. So, when, 
in 1873, Governor Washburn, a Republican, appointed Mr. Endi- 
cott, a Democrat, without his knowledge or any solicitation on 
the part of his friends, as the best man that he could find in 
the Commonwealth for the office, to be one of the Justices of its 
Supreme Judicial Court, he gave a signal demonstration of the 
merits of the system, and at the same time commanded the cordial 
approval of the Bar throughout the State. 

Though taken by surprise, Mr. Endicott promptly answered 
"ready," and immediately took his place in that distinguished 
tribunal, which from the beginning has been the crowning glory of 
Massachusetts, and has, perhaps, done more than any other Court 
except the Supreme Court of the United States to maintain the 
judicial purity, dignity, and power. His six associates were already 
eminent and experienced Judges. The work of the Court was 
incessant and heavy, and to assume at once his full and equal share 
of its labors called for the full exercise of his best powers. It has 
always seemed to me that while at the Bar he had considerable 
reserved power, and did not put forth all his strength. At any 
rate he did not often make those strenuous and desperate exertions 
which stern necessity compels from men who know that they must 
succeed or perish. His circumstances were comfortable and his 
success and leadership came easily, to a degree which convinces 
me that in a wider field, where the strife was harder he would still, 
with more of a struggle, have worked his way to a leading place, 
similar to that which he had attained at the Essex Bar ; but now, 
in the Court, his judicial duties tested his powers, and demanded 
liis full strength from the beginning. He was armed with the full 
panoply of justice. He was not one of those Judges who, as often 
happens under the elective system, have to be educated upon the 
Bench. He entered at once on a term of arduous labor which 
lasted without interruption for more than nine years, and to 
which he applied himself with such an earnest endeavor to do his 
whole duty, that at last it exhausted his health and strength, and 
came dangerously near terminating his extremely useful life. In 



14 

the words of the distinguished advocate ^ whom I have already 
quoted : — 

From the very beginning he proved himself to be an admirable 
Judge. His first opinion, printed upon the page following that con- 
taining the memorandum of his appointment, . . . showed the hand of a 
master. With scarcely an unnecessary word or phrase, and yet with a 
felicity of expression that never failed him, it reached its conclusions 
in a -way that made them appear to be almost axiomatic. It was a 
model opinion ; one of the kind that convinces even the losing side. 
The standard thus at once reached was consistently maintained 
throughout the ten years of his service. Not one of his opinions 
has been over-ruled. 

This last statement is a signal testimony to his judicial ability, 
fidelity, and power of research, for the twenty-two volumes of Re- 
ports of the Court during his tenure of office contain 378 opinions 
written by him, upon almost every conceivable question of law, 
many of them involving the study and analysis of inti'icate and 
tangled questions of fact, and from first to last bringing before 
him for review the whole complex and multifold life of the people 
of a busy and enterprizing Commonwealth. This regular and 
severe work of hearing arguments, attending consultations, and 
writing opinions, was frequently interspersed with the holding of 
jury trials in both civil and capital cases, a service for which his 
admirable temper and long and varied experience as a jury lawyer 
had specially qualified him. Only those engaged in the profession 
can justly appreciate the prodigious amount of drudgery, labor, and 
strain, as well as of intellectual exertion of the highest quality 
involved in such a life, for one who, like him, was inspired with 
the earnest purpose to do his whole duty in the best way possible. 
Of course, many cases were easy of solution, but he must have had 
constantly on his mind the more difficult ones that required ex- 
hausting investigation and deliberate consideration, — always very 
wearing work. In disposing of these, he must have kept con- 
stantly in mind the necessity of living up to the traditions and 
reputation of the illustrious tribunal of which he was a member. 
The physical labor thrown upon him was no trifling matter. The 
age of universal stenographers and typewriters, which enables us 

1 Attorney-General Knowlton. 



15 

now to despatch twice as much business half as well, had not yet 
fully corae, and his son tells us that his opinions were, " for the 
most part, in his own handwriting." 

Apart from the written results of his continuous and well-sus- 
tained mdustry as they appear in the Reports, the testimony is 
harmonious and imiversal to his superior excellence as a Judge. 
His inherent natural qualities formed the basis on which his judi- 
cial character rested. He was healthy -minded and high-minded, 
and of adequate intellectual force and strength; he was truly 
learned in the law, and he had an innate sense of justice and a 
love of fair play which enabled him to hold the scales of justice 
always even. There was a dignity and repose about him, absolute 
impartiality, and uncommon courtesy, that made him upon the 
bench the ideal impersonation of Justice. It was never my good 
fortune to see him in the discharge of his judicial duties, and I may 
perhaps be permitted to quote a few words from the very sincere 
and affectionate tributes that were paid to him at the Bar Meeting, 
and in the Court immediately after his death, by those who had 
long been in close contact with him. 

His natural open-mindedness and his essentially judicial temperament 
were recoguized on all hands. 

A more dignified, graceful, and effective presiding magistrate it has 
never been my fortune to see on the Bench. 

The individual charm that belonged to him, the handsome presence, 
the refined and expressive countenance, the gracious and genial manner, 
only his contemporaries and professional associates can justly appreciate.^ 

His urbanity and his knowledge of men and of affairs rendered the 
transaction of business in his Court smooth and expeditious. 

His opinions were sound and his culture and command of language 
lent them terseness and lucidity.^ 

To great beauty and natural grace of person were added a dignity of 
bearing which did not fail to impress all who came before him, and a 
winning courtesy of manner which attracted and charmed everyone. 

He was the learned, accomplished, high-minded gentleman upon the 
Bench.3 



Hon. Richard Olney. ' Mr. Lewis S. Dabney. 

Mr. Solomon Lincoln. 



16 

[In all cases,] his judgments will be found . . . satisfactory, his learn- 
ing adequate, his perception of the real points clear, his grasp firm and 
strong, his power of statement marked, his style excellent. 

His name will be enrolled amongst those whom the Bar of Massachu- 
setts will evermore hold in respect and honor. ^ 

Above all, he loved justice and right and truth and honor. . . Such a 
man may well be said to be born a Judge. 

His sweetness of temper was proof against all irritation. . . To try a 
case before him afforded a distinct and peculiar pleasure, due simply to 
the manner in which the Judge conducted the trial.^ 

He was a gentleman, in the truest sense of the word. His work left 
no doubt that he was also a lawyer. And when the gentleman and the 
lawyer are combined in one the result is the best type of Judge. ^ 

Chief-Justice Holmes well portrayed his judicial character: — 

I . . . think that he represented in the superlative degree my notion of 
the proper bearing and conduct of a Judge. Distinguished in person, 
with the look of race in his countenance which in more ways than one 
suggested a resemblance to that first Endicott to whom Massachusetts 
owes so much, he sat without a thought of self, without even the un- 
conscious pride or aloofness which seemed, nay, was his right, serenely 
absorbed in the problems of the matter in hand, impersonal yet human, 
the living image of Justice, weighing as if the elements in the balance 
were dead matter, but discerning and collecting those elements by the 
help of a noble and tender heart. 

Such tributes as these from those who knew him best, uttered with 
evident truth and sincerity nearly twenty years after he left the 
bench, indicate how deep and lasting a mark he had left upon the 
profession. He was an eminently good, wise, and useful Judge, and 
ranks high in the long list of the members of the Court who have 
made it so eminent among American tribunals. His heart was in 
his work and his conscience too, and he appears to have been 
singularly free from judicial faults that are not uncommon. 
He had none of that impatience which leads some judges to inter- 
fere and take the case out of the hands of counsel, before the 
trial or argument has fairly begun, as if they knew it all better 
than those who were responsible for its conduct and had made it 

1 lion. Charles Allen. ^ Mr. Causteu Browne. ^ Attorney-General Knowlton. 



17 

the subject of protracted study. He respected the rights of the 
Bar as carefully as he maintained the dignity and authority of the 
Court, and was never dictatorial or domineering. His nerves and 
temper were always well in hand, so that he was never peevish or 
petulant. He never sought by the exercise of his judicial functions 
to win applause or attract popular favor, but was content and 
anxious only to do justice. Remembering the shortness of life and 
the value of time, he did not overload his opinions with superflu- 
ous quotations from authorities and precedents, but expressed his 
reasons with brevity, clearness, and force, and so carried conviction 
and left his decisions worthy models for imitation. The one pre- 
eminent trait which made him a marked man among his fellows, at 
the Bar or on the Bench, was his charming courtesy and attractive 
dignity of manner, which made him a universal favorite in Court, 
so that whether he was conducting a trial or argument as counsel, 
or presiding in the tribunal of which he was an ornament, he was 
a fine example of the finished and perfect gentleman. It was no 
light measure of praise when the Chief-Justice ^ said of his man- 
ners that " his example has prevailed, and that now it is the rule 
that a lawyer will try his case like a gentleman, without giving 
up any portion of his energy and force." 

I have dwelt at considerable length upon his judicial career, be- 
cause to my mind the office and the service of the Judge are the 
highest and noblest that man can exercise upon earth, and in his 
hands they suffered no detriment. He wore the ermine gracefully 
and transmitted it as spotless as he received it. Judge Endicott 
very closely resembled the ideal judge as portrayed by Rufus 
Choate in his celebrated address on the Judicial Tenure : — 

A man towards whom the love and trust and affectionate admiration 
of the people should How ; . . . one to whose benevolent face, and bland 
and dignified manners, and firm administration of the whole learning 
of the law, we become accustomed; whom our eyes anxiously, not in 
vain, explore when we enter the temple of justice ; towards whom our 
attachment and trust grow even with the growth of his own eminent 
reputation. 

Tlie strain of his faithful and unremitting labor, in the tenth year 
of his service, resulted, as too often happens, in broken health and 

^ lion. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



18 

shattered nerves, and compelled liim, against the earnest protest 
of all his colleagues, to send his resignation to the Governor,^ 
whose response well expressed the judgment of the State for which 
he spoke : — 

It is with the greatest reluctance and only upon conviction that your 
determination is final that I accept your resignation of the office of 
Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. I express the unanimous senti- 
ment of the Commonwealth when I say I regret the loss to Massachu- 
setts of your learning and wisdom, and express the hope that you may 
soon be restored to health and to the judicial service which you have 
so long adorned. 

This remission of labor was timely, and after a year or two of 
repose and travel he returned to Massachusetts restored in health, 
with much capacity for future service, though never so robust as 
of old. 

Mr. Endicott was never a politician and with all his charming 
manner and attractive personality he never cultivated those arts 
which win popular favor and applause. As we have seen, he had 
often been a candidate for Attorney-General and once for Congress, 
but these nominations were not of his own seeking and he probably 
never hfted his voice or hand to secure votes. His party in the 
State had long been sadly demoralized, but the nomination of Mr. 
Cleveland for the Presidency in 1884 roused it to new activity, and 
its convention at Worcester unanimously insisted upon nominating 
Mr. Endicott for the high office of Governor. No office could 
possibly have been more attractive to him, and there was no man 
in the State who would have more fitly adorned it. It must have 
touelied and awakened, I will not say the desire, but rather the 
dream which he must have cherished, of the possibility of filling 
the place which liis renowned ancestor liad so worthily filled. 
Notliing could be more captivating than the idea of such an hered- 
itiiry succession by the will of the people after an interval of seven 
generations ; but whether it was that he distrusted his recovered 
liealth, or shrank from the uncongenial pursuit of a hotly contested 
and extremely doubtful campaign, he at iirst refused the nomination 
Avhich was thrust upon him by the Convention in — 

^ Hon. John D. Long. 



19 



merited recognition of his life-long devotion to Democratic principles, 
his fidelity to all the public trusts he had assumed, and the dignity, 
honor, and rectitude that had always marked his intercourse with his 
fellow-men. 

But being finally persuaded that his candidacy might help the 
election of Mr. Cleveland, in whose behalf he was warmly enlisted, 
he, much against his will, accepted the nomination upon the rare 
but highly characteristic condition that he should not be required 
'' to take the stump." His acceptance was an acknowledged tribute 
to the " honesty, fidelity, courage, and patriotism of the national 
candidate." 

Attracted by his loyal devotion to the principles in support of 
which he had himself been elected, while Endicott had been de- 
feated, Mr. Cleveland, though personally a stranger to him, in con- 
sidering the composition of his Cabinet, in February, 1885, invited 
him to Albany and offered him the position of Secretary of War. 
Upon full consideration of the responsibilities and sacrifices which 
the position would exact, and in the same spirit in which he had 
led the party in Massachusetts, he accepted the office, which he 
filled acceptably and to the public advantage for four years from 
the fourth of March, 1885. It was well for him that the office 
in that period of peace and tranquillity did not impose upon him 
the colossal duties and difficulties that have lately rested upon the 
stalwart shoulders of his successor, the present incumbent. The 
routine of tlie Department in those days, though exacting, was 
uniformly quiet, and his health and strength proved entirely ade- 
quate to the highly creditable and useful discharge of every duty 
cast upon him. 

The only fighting which the United States Army had to do 
during Ids administration was in the suppression of Indian out- 
breaks, and the last of the considerable Indian fights ended happily 
in 1886 with the final defeat of the Apaches and the capture of 
their chief, Geronimo, who had given infinite trouble. 

He contributed to the Cabinet and Administration of Mr. Cleve- 
land, an element of great refinement and culture, the charm of his 
attractive personality, social gifts of a high order, great wisdom in 
counsel, purity of character which commanded the confidence of 
the approving Nation, and a loyal support and encouragement to 



20 

all the earnest efforts of his chief for the reform of the public ser- 
vice and the maintenance of the national credit and dignity, and 
we have the cheerful and emphatic testimony of the present dis- 
tinguished Secretary of War, that the position which Mr. Endicott 
held in the Cabinet — 

though foreign to his training, he immediately rendered conspicuous 
by strict attention to duty, and a keen interest in the Army and its 
requirements. . . He initiated many important reforms which, pressed 
to successful conclusion, enabled him to maintain undiminished that 
high standard of integrity for which the Department of War has ever 
been distinguished. 

It would not be useful here to detail or to summarize the many 
important subjects of a technical nature which engaged his atten- 
tion as Secretary of War and which have passed into the history of 
the army and the country ; but as indicative of his faithful support 
of Mr. Cleveland's efforts to promote the stability of the civil 
service, it is worthy of special notice and remembrance that out of 
a total of 1619 employees of the War Department and its bureaux, 
whom he found when he took office, all of whom had been appointed 
by the opposite political party, he made, in the four years of his 
tenure of office, only thirteen removals except for cause or for the 
reduction of the force. 

He took a vivid and constant interest in the Academy at West 
Point, as the invaluable nursery of military education, upon which 
the good name of our Army and its officers must always depend, 
and his addresses to its graduating class from year to year were 
patriotic and stimulating. With persistent energy and zeal he 
initiated many re-organizations and reforms of bureaux and depart- 
ments of the Army Service, the beneficial results of which are per- 
manent and of great utility. The Board of Fortification and other 
Defences, created by an act of Congress on the day before he took 
office, to devise measures for the defence of the coast and harbors 
and seaboard cities and which is known as the Endicott Board, 
cast upon him, as Chairman, most laborious duties, and established 
the policy according to which our coast defences are now main- 
tained out of large appropriations made for the purpose. His 
four annual reports to Congress disclose an enormous amount of 
detail work most faithfully done. 



21 

Judge Endicott was a good speaker, and on the few occasions 
which enlisted his sympathies and on which he permitted himself 
to be drawn upon for such service, he delivered excellent discourses. 
His elaborate and sympathetic addresses in 1869, at the dedication 
of the Museum of the Peabody Academy of Science in Salem, and 
in 1878, on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing 
of John Endicott, commanded great attention, and their perusal 
discloses an intimate acquaintance with the local history of his 
native city and county and a deep interest in the development of 
New England. Besides his devotion to Harvard College, his inter- 
est in the cause of education was manifested by his service as a 
Trustee of Groton School and of the Peabody Education Fund. 

After his retirement from the Cabinet in 1889, he resumed the 
practice of his profession in Boston, in a quiet and dignified way. 
His advice and services were eagerly availed of by many important 
interests, which he served as long as his waning health permitted, 
till at last, worn out by his long course of professional and public 
service, he retired to his country seat at Danvers, where, surrounded 
by scenes that had been familiar to his great progenitor, and in the 
enjoyment of all that should accompany old age, he passed the 
evening of his days in dignified repose. 

Such a sketch as this that I have attempted, of one whose career 
was for the greater part of it conspicuous in the eyes of his fellow- 
men, might, perhaps, remain without reference to that inner life, 
known only to his family and his friends and guarded by himself 
as something too intimate and sacred for other eyes to penetrate. 
And yet, in his case, the memorial must be very incomplete which 
fails entirely to notice this side of his existence. 

The strategy of a soldier, the invention of an author, the policy 
of a statesman may be, and often have been, independent of the 
circumstances of their domestic life and even of their private 
character; but William Endicott was through all, and above all, 
a great gentleman ; and he could not have been this, had his inner- 
most thoughts and most intimate surroundings been other than 
they were. 

So I will say, in few words, that no man has ever been more 
beloved by those nearest to him, none has had warmer friendships 
and kept them longer unchanged, and none has had greater power 
of attracting and giving sympathy in his intercourse with all sorts 



22 

and conditions of men. Joined to the reserve, which was so 
marked a part of his nature, were a keen appreciation of character 
and a kindly sense of humor that won for liim the affection and 
respect of all with Avhom he was brought into contact. The old 
Yankee farmer, the country lawyer, the little tradesman in the 
town were as much at home with him as the most cultured writer 
and distinguished jurist whose friendship he had made among the 
first men of his time both in America and in Europe. 

To all alike his dignified simplicity and tolerant humanity equally 
appealed ; and, while the most learned and cultivated found in him 
a refined and delicate intelligence, the loving regard of humbler 
minds was not less surely attracted by his generous sympathy and 
transparent honesty. 

And so he passed away, keeping clean to the end the unstained 
record of his ancestors, and leaving behind to his family and his 
friends the memory of a pure, an upright, and an unselfish life. 
Whether we regard him as lawyer, judge, statesman, or citizen, he 
commanded the respect and affection of his own generation, and 
his memory should be handed down to those who come after us as 
a model for the Americans of the future. 



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